Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar
Learn the secrets to daily joy and lasting
fulfillment.
We all know that change is hard. Much research
suggests that learning new tricks, adopting new behaviors or breaking old
habits may be harder than we even realize and that most attempts at change,
whether by individuals or organizations fail. In their book ‘The power of Full
engagement’ Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz provide a different way of thinking
about change: they suggest that instead of focusing on cultivating
self-discipline as a means toward change, we need to introduce rituals.
According to Loehr and Schwarts, ‘building rituals requires defining very
precise behaviors and performing them at very specific times - motivated by
deeply held values”. (According to William James, it takes 21 days to form a
new habit)
In research done by Robert Emmons and Michael
McCullough, those who kept a daily gratitude journal - writing down at least
five things for which they were grateful - enjoyed higher levels of emotional
and physical well-being.
The gravity of this error is revealed in an old
episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ in which a ruthless criminal, killed while
running from the police, is greeted by an angel sent to grant his every wish.
The man, fully aware of his life of crime, cannot believe that he is in heaven.
He is initially baffled but then accepts his good fortune and begins to list
his desires: he asks for his favorite food and it is served to him; he asks for
beautiful women and they appear. life (after death), it seems could not be
better.
However, as time goes by, the pleasure he
derives from continuous indulgence begins to diminish; the effortless of his
existence becomes tiresome. He asks the angel for some work that will challenge
him and is told that in his place he can get whatever he wants - except the
change to work for the things he receives. Without any challenge, the criminal
becomes increasingly frustrated. Finally, in utter desperation, he says to the
angel that he wants to get out, to go to ‘the other place’. The criminal,
assuming that he is in heaven, wants to go to hell. The camera zooms in on the
angel as his delicate face turns devious and threatening,. With the ominous
laughter of the devil, he says, ‘This 1s the other place’.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whose work focus on the
state of peak performance and peak experience, claims that ‘the best moments
usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a
voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. As John
Gardner, former US secretary of health, education and welfare, points out, “We
are designed for the climb, not for taking our ease, either in the valley or at
the summit”.
Students who truly love learning for instance,
derive present benefit from the pleasure they take in discovering new ideas and
future benefit from the ways in which those ideas will prepare them for their
careers. Those who work at something they love - be it in business, medicine or
art - can progress in their career while enjoying the journey.
Research by the likes of Herbert Benson, Jon
Kabat-Zinn, and Richard Davidson reveals the profound effects of regular
mediation.
In a review of the research on well-being,
psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky , Laura King and Ed Diener note, “Numerous
studies show that happy individuals are successful across multiple life
domains, including marriage, friendship, income, work performance and health’.
The research illustrates that the relationship between happiness and success is
reciprocal: not only can success contribute to happiness, but happiness also
leads to more success.
Emotion cause motion, they provide a motive that
drives our action. The very language we use suggests an essential truth - that
emotion, motion and motivation are intimately linked.
According to French Renaissance philosopher
Michel de Montaigne, “The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with
purpose”. Having a purpose, a goal that provides a sense of direction,
imbues our individual actions with meaning - and from experiencing life as a
collection of disjointed pieces, we begin to experience it as a masterpiece. An
overarching purpose can unify individual activities, just like overarching
theme of a symphony unifies the individual notes. In and of itself, a note does
not amount to much, but it becomes significant, and beautiful - when part of a
common theme, a common purpose.
When thinking about the most meaningful life for
ourselves, we must also consider our potential and how to make full use of our
capacities. While a cow might seem content with a life spent grazing in the
pasture, we cannot be happy living simply to gratify our physical desires. Our
inborn potential as humans dictates that we do more, that we utilize our full
capacities. “The happiness that is genuinely satisfying” writes the philosopher
Bertrand Russell, “is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and
the fullest realization of the world in which we live”.
The question is ‘what pursuit would challenge
you and fulfill your potential?
My theory of happiness on the works of Freud as
well as Frankl. Freud’s pleasure principle says that we are fundamentally
driven by the instinctual need for pleasure. Frankl argues that we are
motivated by a will to meaning rather than by a will to pleasure - he says that
‘striving to find meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in
man’. In the context of finding happiness, there is some truth in both Freud’s
and Frankl’s theories. We need to gratify both the will for pleasure and the
will for meaning if we are to lead a fulfilling, happy life. Happiness
presupposes our having to overcome obstacles. In the words of Frankl, ‘what man
actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and
struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of
tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be
fulfilled by him’.
We should also remember that going through
difficult times augments our capacity for pleasure: it keeps us from taking
pleasure for granted, reminds us to be grateful for all the large and small
pleasures in our lives. Being grateful in this way can itself be a source of
real meaning and pleasure.
Most of us do not take the time to ask ourselves
the question of questions - because we are too busy. As Thoreau says, however,
‘Life is too short to be in a hurry’. If we are always on the go, we are
reacting to the exigencies of day-to-day life rather than allowing ourselves
the space to create a happy life. Abraham Maslow maintains that a person
‘cannot choose wisely for a life he dares to listen to himself, his own self,
at each moment in life’.
In making decisions and judgments, we also tend
to focus on the material rather than paying heed to the emotional because those
things that are quantifiable lend themselves more easily to assessment and
evaluation. We value the measurable (material wealth and prestige) over the
unmeasurable (emotions and meaning). In our material world, we worship material
girls and boys, Wealthy people are revered by virtue of their material
possession, as if net-worth in an apt measure for how worthy a person is. As
Laurence G. Boldt says in ‘Zen and the art of making living’, ‘society tells us
the only thing that matters is matter - the only things that count are the
things that can be counted’. The monetary worth of a house is questionable, the
feelings we attach to our home are not. Shakespeare’s Hamlet may cost $10 in
the bookstore; what it means to us cannot be measured.
People who set goals are more likely to succeed
than people who do not. Setting a goal is about making a commitment in words,
and words have the power to create a better future. William H Hurry, a Scottish
mountaineer, wrote in ‘The Scottish Himalayan Expedition about the benefits of
throwing one’s knapsack over a brick wall:
‘Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the
chance to draw back; always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative
(and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills
countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits
oneself, then providence moves too. All sort of things occur to help one that
could not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the
decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and
meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamed would come his
way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you
can do or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, magic and power in it’.
The emphasis in my approach is not so much on
attaining goals as it is on having them. In his article, “Positive
Affectivity’, psychologist David Watson underscores the value of the journey”
‘Contemporary researches emphasis that it is not the process of striving after
goals - rather than goal attainment per se - that is crucial for happiness and
positive affectivity’. The primary purpose of having a goal - a future purpose
- is to enhance enjoyment of the present. Goals are means, not just ends. For
sustained happiness we need to change the expectations we have of our goals:
rather than perceiving them as ends(expecting that their attainment will make
us happy), we need to see them as means(recognizing that they can enhance the
pleasure we take in the journey).
Summarizing the research on goals and happiness,
Kennan Sheldon and his colleagues write, “People seeking greater well being
would be well advised to focus on the pursuit of (a) goals involving growth,
connection and contribution rather than goals involving money, beauty and
popularity and (b) goals that are interesting and personally important to them
rather than goals they feel forced or pressured to pursue”.
The process of knowing and being know is
potentially never-ending as there is always more that can be revealed , always
more that can be discovered. The relationship, therefore, is far more likely to
remain interesting, exciting, stimulating. Being together - whether talking
over a coffee, caring for children or making love - becomes so much more
meaningful and pleasurable when our focus shifts from validation to knowing and
being known. Many people believe that the key to a successful relationship is
finding the right partner. In fact, however, the most important and challenging
component of a happy relationship is not finding the one right person - I don’t
believe that there is just one right person for each of us - but rather
cultivating the one chosen relationship.
In many romantic movies, toward the end of the
movie, the lovers get together, kiss passionately and then live happily ever
after - or so we assume. The problem is that movies end where love begins. It
is the living happily ever after that poses the greatest challenge; it is after
the sun sets that difficulties often rise. We cultivate intimacy by knowing and
being known. We can then deepen our intimacy by acting on our knowledge of one
another - engaging in activities that are meaningful and pleasurable to
ourselves as well as to our partner. Over time, as we get to know one another
and spend time together engaged in activities that we care about most, we build
a foundation that we can weather inevitable storms as well as provide fertile
ground for love and happiness to blossom.
Other books mentioned in the book:
Leading change by Daniel Goleman, Richard
Boyatzis and Annie McKee
The six pillars of self-esteem by Branden Nathaniel
Self-Efficacy: The excercise of control by W.H.
Freeman and Company
Finding Flows: The psychology of engagement with
everyday life by Csikszentmihalyi.
